The Radiant Flame
by Tumerboy12
Summary: A Fire Emblem Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn SI. All I wanted to do with my weekend was beat Path of Radiance one last time so I would be set for when my friends came over to help me twitch stream the Tellius saga over spring break. But in light of recent events I don't think that will be happening like ever.
1. Prologue

**Chapter 1**

"Boom! Take that Daein, maybe now you'll think twice before messing with the Greil mercenaries!" I shouted at my television as I beat level nine of Fire Emblem Path of Radiance for the umpteenth time, even if my celebration would be short lived due to my most hated enemy, level ten.

When I finally stopped dancing the standard save game text box was on screen, I eagerly answered yes so could be done with my nemesis, that's when things started flying far south of weird; in hindsight I probably should have just walked away when the Wii got all pixel y and reset itself instead of actually saving, but like every other gamer on the planet that just lost progress on a video game.

"What the heck, game! Oh no, don't you do this to me!" I groan in an overly dramatic fashion, trying very hard not to eject the disc and break it into several tiny pieces over my knee. I guess I should have tried that too, although it probably wouldn't have helped.

Heaving a heavy sigh as I sat back down on the couch, I waited for the Wii to start back up again although when it did I knew immediately that something was wrong with the console. How did I know? Glad you asked, I knew something was wrong with my Wii because in the short time it had taken to reset itself the Wii had somehow managed to go into debug mode, which was impossible for any number of reasons to do manually or automatically. Let alone have the Wii do without anyone telling it to do so.

Struggling to keep calm I did what I thought would be the best course of action, make a video of what the hell was happening on my phone so I could figure things out with my techie friends later. I deserve a Darwin for doing that. Cause this is what the Wii was saying.

**Warning fatal system error … No operating system detected.**

**Entering freeboot mode … We're good to go.**

**Warning system is 78% Corrupt.**

**Warning … Cannot run Crysis … Core meltdown initiated Step 1/3 completed.**

"What the …" I started to say but immediately stopped as more error text flooded the screen.

**Deleting file cache … Done.**

**Step 2/3 completed.**

**You think your all that don't you?**

**"What in the?" I reiterated**

**Well I'll show you.**

**System Corruption is almost done … 98% … 99%.**

**Warning mass systems failure imminent … Corruption level has reached critical stages.**

**Step 3/3 completed.**

**It's Showtime, smell ya later looser!**

"Wait what are you …" I began to say but was cut off when my gaming setup exploded sending shards of plastic and glass shrapnel flying at me from all directions. Then there was nothing but an all encompassing inky blackness.

"Where, am I? Am I, dead?" I thought aloud to myself not really expecting an answer. Boy was I ever wrong.

**New user detected … Loading profile? … Done.**

**This profile has Level: 03 clearance is this okay?**

**{Yes} No**

**You have selected to permit this profile to have access to special privileges, Which may change due to the users performance. Is this okay?**

**{Yes} No**

"Hey what's going on here? I'm not doing any of this, dang it why won't someone answer me?!" I cried in vain.

**Would you like to continue from where you last left off?**

**{Yes} No**

**Loading world data …Done.**

**Placing user at its last known save.**

Then I was alone with my thoughts in the nothingness that surrounded me.


	2. Jailbreak

**Chapter 2**

"I'm so never doing anything on a modded Wii ever again." I muttered angrily to no one in particular as I floated in the all encompassing darkness.

"Yeah, cause that's totally the reason why we're here now." An unidentified sarcastic voice echoed from seemingly everywhere.

"Huh, whose there?!" I demanded as I looked around frantically for the voice's owner, and becoming more than a little panicked when I couldn't find one.

"Ooh, I know this one, can I answer it?" The voice called back still coming from everywhere.

"Please do." I replied as I could already feel myself fending off a migraine.

"Well you're here, and me and my pal Janus are here with you. That answer your question?"

"No." I said through gritted teeth trying to keep myself from having a stroke.

"He can't see us you idiot, you didn't turn on the two-way display." Another voice, this one apparently belonging to Janus said in an identical fashion to the first one.

"But I don't want him to see me." The first voice said timidly.

"Than get out of here so I can do my job!" Janus commanded angrily.

…

"Alright, now where were we?" Janus asked.

"I think you were about to answer some of my questions." I retorted.

"Oh yeah, but first I need to fix something." Janus said

"Such as?" I inquired incredulously.

"This." Janus replied and suddenly I could see, not that what I was seeing was making any sense.

"Better?" Janus asked in a friendly tone.

"A little I guess but I still have a lot of questions." I replied.

"Would you feel better if I was talking to you face to face?" Janus asked.

"Yeah that would be nice." I replied timidly.

"Alright, give me a second." Janus said.

…

"So, what did you have questions about?" A dimly glowing figure that was apparently Janus asked as it entered the space I was floating in.

"What are you, and where am I?" I asked without really thinking.

"Me, I'm an eidolon, and we are currently standing in the confines of your sub-conscious." Janus replied nonchalantly.

"Really than why is it so dark?" I asked letting myself be distracted for the moment.

"Well it's not like it has to be like this, we can be in any setting your comfortable in you know." Janus replied.

"Really, than why don't we change this to a high tech library fortress?" I asked rhetorically not really expecting anything to happen, instead the darkness changed it's form to exactly what I had described.

"Would you like me to save this for you?" Janus asked.

"Uh, sure go ahead." I said distractedly.

"Did you have any other questions or concerns?" Janus asked, snapping me out of my reverie.

"Yeah, actually I did have other questions. What's going on here?" I asked.

"I can't tell you that." Janus simply replied

"Why not?" I asked now annoyed that he wasn't answering my question.

"Because that's for you to figure out on your own." Janus said tiredly.

"Alright, so how did I get here, last I remember I was in my basement playing Fire Emblem?" I queried.

"We teleported you, and before you ask where we are again we're in the far plane." Janus explained.

"So I'm dead?" I asked now very confused as to what was going on.

"No, you're not dead. Look we're out of time so you're going to be on your own for a while, but call me if you need anything." Janus said hurriedly.

"Wait how do I do that?" I called out as Janus vanished in a flash of blinding light.

…

"Hey!" A calm soothing voice beckoned.

…

"Come on, wake up already!" The voice exclaimed worriedly while lightly shaking me into semi-consciousness.

"W-where am I?" I asked as my eyes opened to give me a view of dimly lit darkness instead of the pitch black kind I was just in.

"Prison." The voice answered, though it didn't take long to find it's owner.

"Ah, I see your awake now. Good I was beginning to worry that you might not wake up. My name is Sephiran by the way, might I have yours?" Sephiran said in what must have been the most neutral tone in existence.

"I'm Dylan." I replied without thinking.

_'Great, just great I'm going to die in a jail cell because some cosmic entity sent me to Tellius __for reasons unknown, __and even if I do manage to somehow escape I've already let my name out to the one guy that's trying to cause a mass extinction event__.'_

"So Sephiran, any idea what we're in for?" I asked casually.

"Well I'm in here because the Daein army caught me healing some of the Crimean militia while I was on a pilgrimage, I'm not sure why your here though since you were here when I arrived." Sephiran explained.

…

"Do you think we'll ever get out of here?" I asked nervously.

"You mean alive right?" Sephiran asked back.

"Well that would be preferable." I replied.

"Probably not." Sephiran answered shaking his head dismissively.

"The castle's defenses have been breached, inform Commander Danomill immediately!" A guard shouted.

"Yes sir!" another replied.

"And you, don't just stand there get us some help down here, on the double!" The guard shouted again.

"Right away sir!" The subordinate said timidly as he disappeared down some passage or another.

"Hm, it seems I've spoke too soon." Sephiran mumbled to himself as the door to our cell swung open and Ike walked in with someone I'd never seen before right behind him.

"Your cell door is open, you should leave here while my friends and I fight off these guards." Ike said authoritatively.

"Actually I think I'll stay and fight with you if you don't mind." I said instinctively.

"Are you armed?" Ike asked curiously.

"I don't think so, maybe I'll just get out of here wile the getting is good." I responded.

"That might be for the best, though your free to join my mercenary company when we're done here." Ike replied.

"I think I'll have to take you up on that offer when we get out of here." I replied trying not to sound too confident that they would be okay.

"You mean if we get out of here." Ike corrected.

"Commander, we need to keep moving if we want to actually make it out of here alive!" A voice called out to our general direction.

"Right, sorry Soren!" Ike shot back as he ran off to inform the next prisoner of their freedom, at least I think that's where he went.

_'Well I should probably get a move on it too, don't want to be left behind after all'_

And with that thought I realized that I was still just standing in the jail cell like an idiot, or a suicidal moron. And so I do what any sane person in my current situation would do, which is GTFO. Thankfully I hadn't run into any guards yet, don't get me wrong I'd seen plenty of them its just that they were too busy fighting off the Greil Mercenaries to notice me, or if they did see me they were quickly killed by someone who wasn't.

And just when I thought I was in the clear, I was accosted by Commander Danomill and his two generic myrmidons.

"Well, well, what do we have here, a new face? I've not seen you round here before so you must be?" The Daein General asked himself rhetorically, hoping I would introduce myself.

…

"What's your name boy?" Danomill asked being more direct this time.

At that moment everything started to slow down and my vision got fuzzy, almost like it was transitioning to something.

"Not much of a talker are you? Ah well, it wasn't like I was planning on sparring your life, get him boys!" Danomill roared, causing his two henchmen to rush me with their swords.

My reaction was purely instinctive, before I knew what I was doing I was throwing sand and gravel that I had gotten from god only knows where in my assailants eyes. This not only blinded them but also bought the Greil Mercenaries enough time to catch up to where I was and deal with the swordsmen. Giving me a brief moment to rest.

"Well, perhaps you'll be more fun than I first thought. Oh, wait you don't have a weapon." Danomill said mockingly, probably just trying to get me to do something stupid.

…

"Again with the silent treatment, eh? Well you'd better get used to that cause that's the only sound you'll be making when I'm done with you!" Danomill roared as he moved to cut me in two.

And just like that, the dreamlike sequence was over just as suddenly as it had begun. However this time the visual transition was pretty much seamless.

"Get him boys!" Danomill roared, causing me to jump in place.

Acting purely on instinct I bent over and sure enough there was a mixture of sand and gravel beneath my feet. I quickly picked up a large handful and threw it in a wide arc in the now rapidly closing space in front of me. This thankfully blinded the swordsmen. And now the Greil Mercenaries are fighting them, wow deja′ vu much.

"Well perhaps you'll be more fun than I first thought. Oh, wait you don't have a weapon." The Daein general mocked.

…

"Again with the silent treatment, eh? Well you'd better get used to that cause that's the only sound you'll be making when I'm done with you!" Danomill roared, as he raised his sword and ran at me like he was going to cleave me in half. So what do I do, stand there like an idiot whose too terrified to move, or defend himself for that matter.

"Elwind!" I heard Soren shout from somewhere behind me. This was followed by the general being blasted from all sides with blades of gale force wind.

"Why you insolent little boy, I guess I'll have to teach you some manners." Danomill said now shaking with rage.

To Soren's credit he let his magic do the talking as he began channeling what would have been a critical hit, this time the spell chopped the man into rather large pieces of what used to be a Daein general.

"Come on now Dylan, we'd best get a move on everyone's waiting us, unless you liked being held prisoner." Ike conjectured as he approached from behind me.

"Uh no, I think I'd prefer freedom thank you." I replied as I walked towards what I presumed was the prison exit, suffice it to say it was.

"Hey look whose finally out, and you've brought plenty of friends I see." A friendly sounding voice called.

"Ranulf, shall I assume you finished your errands than?" Ike called back

"Indeed I have, but I'm afraid I must inquire into the trustworthiness of some of your newer members." Ranulf began.

"What of them?" Ike responded

"Come now Ike, you've just recruited a thief whom you know nothing about while saving a monk on some kind of pilgrimage, add in the monk's equally mysterious cell mate and you have a recipe for disaster. Ranulf elaborated.

"Well, the monks already parted ways with us, as for the other two I'd say they're trustworthy enough for the time being." Ike replied.

"Well never the less, you certainly do seem to attract a strange crowd, but we should keep moving we'll need to put as much distance between us and here as possible. And we're still two days march from Port Toha." Ranulf said bidding us all to follow him. Which we did until it came time to make camp and rest for the night. By then Ike had already talked to me about well, everything that really needed to be talked about like was I serious about my offer to help them? Could I handle myself in a fight? What sort of weapon did I use? By the time we'd covered everything I was ready for sleep to take me, which it did almost instantaneously.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Hey wake up lazy bones, we've got to move!" A girl that could only be Mist cried.

"Really what's going on? Are we being ambushed?" I asked quickly entering a state of hyper alertness.

"What no, we're just breaking camp for the day silly." Mist replied clearly amused with my antics.

"Oh, okay than, you could've just led with that you know." I said forcing myself to calm down.

"Yeah well, you can't argue with the results that my choice got me, can you?" Mist asked rhetorically.

"No I suppose not." I said in agreement.

"Oh and before I forget, your supposed to report to the command tent before we finish breaking camp. But if I were you I'd grab something to eat first, just so you don't miss breakfast." Mist explained politely.

"Right I'll do that than, and thanks for the message." I replied trying to not seem exhausted, which was hard if you spend all of the previous night having a recurring nightmare, and therefore didn't get a lot of sleep.

"Great, but won't you need help getting to the mess tent?" Mist questioned in a knowing manner.

"I suppose I could use a guide until I get my bearings." I replied sheepishly.

"Great, than if you'll follow me I'll show you around camp." Mist said enthusiastically.

…

"Alright here we are, the mess tent!" Mist exclaimed.

"Thanks Mist, are you going to want to grab anything to eat while we're in here?" I asked her in response.

"Nah I'm good, thanks for asking though, but how about I get my big brother and Soren for you while you eat?" Mist replied nonchalantly.

"Sure that would be great thank you Mist." I answered happily.

"Okay wait right here, I'll be right back." Mist said as she ran off to find Ike.

I was about to dig in when I felt something off about my surroundings, like I was being watched or something.

"Whoever s watching me can come out now, you've been found out so there's no point in continuing to hide." I said to whoever it was that had been trying to spy on me.

"Well this is a welcome surprise, I wasn't expecting you to be quite so perceptive." Came an unfamiliar female voice.

"My name's Erin and you must be Dylan, am I right?" Erin said as she sat down next to me in the tent.

"And if I am?" I replied between mouthfuls of food.

"Well, if you were the man I'm looking for than I'd be able to help you get your hands on a survival bag, but since your not him I guess I'll just be on my way." Erin replied wryly.

"Okay let's get something straight here, I am the person your looking for, and I never said I wasn't I just wanted to know what you needed me for. Got it?" I shot back aggressively.

"Well in that case I'll have your survival pack for you before we reach Port Toha." Erin replied.

"Thanks now can I get back to my meal please?" I asked crankily.

"Uh, sure no problem, jerk face." She shot back with a little surprise in her voice.

"Sorry, Mist just got me up a little earlier than what I'm used to, so for that I apologize." I said before she could walk away on me.

"Really 'cause it seems to me like you didn't get any sleep at all last night." Erin replied.

"Is it that obvious?" I asked without thinking.

"Yes." Erin retorted bluntly.

"So what is a survival bag any way?" I finally asked after a long, drawn out and down right awkward silence.

"I'm glad you asked, you see your basic survival survival bag comes with everything you need to survive in this world like weapons, healing items, gold, a skill, the point is if you can name it than you can probably find it in a survival bag." Erin explained.

"Great, so where's mine?" I asked irritably.

"I'm having a couple of friends meet us with it on the way to Port Toha." Erin replied patiently.

And we're back to not talking again. Great, just great.

"So is there anything else you'd like to know, or are we just going to sit here and pretend that we're not in the same boat?" Erin asked clearly uncomfortable with the silence. Needless to say she now had my full attention.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked suspiciously.

"You know someone that was doing something on earth when that Janus guy supposedly saves you and brings you here for some reason or another." Erin explained helpfully.

"So, this has happened before to other people?" I asked mystified by our shared predicament, though also trying very hard not to panic since I was no longer dealing with a dream based reality like I had originally thought.

"Oh yeah, apparently loads of times at least as far as I can tell anyway." Erin retorted darkly.

"Has anyone found a way home?" I asked hoping against hope that there would be someway out of this world.

"Do you think you'd have me if that were the case?" She responded with equal darkness.

"Has anyone even tried to find one? Or figure out why we're here for that matter?" I asked with a growing sense of panic.

"Not as far as I'm aware. Why you want out already?"

"I don't want to die if that's what your asking." I retorted bluntly.

"Well to be fair no one wants to die, but that's no reason not to live your life the way you want to live it."

"Commander! What are you doing here? Is there something that I can assist you with?" Erin asked in what I assume was a desperate attempt to keep Ike at an arms length with our shared predicament. However the fact that he was able to get in here with out either one of us noticing was troubling not to mention worth noting since it meant that he'd be able to sneak up on one of or both of us in the future, and likely overhear things about our respective homes which aren't on this continent.

"First of all, we're behind schedule. So we need to get this tent dismantled like the rest of camp is already." Ike retorted.

"Right, we'll get out of the way than, but was there something else you needed, Commander?" Erin responded likely choosing to ignore our commanding officers tone.

"Yeah there is, Dylan, I need you to find Muston and tell him you need weapons and armor, and I trust you can decide what weapons to get on your own just keep in mind that whatever you spend here today will be coming out of your pay." Ike ordered sternly.

"By your leave Ike." I replied, choosing to forgo being a wise ass.

"Dismissed." Ike grunted as he turned and walked away leaving me to wonder what was eating him only to remember that his dad had been quite recently murdered, and that he was usually like this.

"Hey, is your name Dylan?" Someone gruffly asked from behind me, causing me to turn on my heels as my heart nearly jumped out of my chest and straight into the hulking behemoth that was Muston.

"Yeah, is your name Muston?" I asked back in an attempt to keep up appearances after getting over just how big he was and how he'd managed to sneak up on me.

"Sure is. Now come with me I've got something for you at the wagon." He grunted whilst motioning for me to follow him to the convoy which thankfully wasn't very far.

"Here. These are for you." Muston said as he thrust a series bags into my arms after a few moments of digging in the back of the wagon.

"Right so, how much is all this setting back the company?"

"Not a thing."

"What! Why not?" I asked in astonishment.

"Cause someone else has already paid for all of that stuff in full and then some, and asked that we give it all to someone named Dylan. They were talking about you weren't they?" Muston explained wearily.

"Yeah. They were, I mean who else could they have meant?" I answered hastily.

"Well if that's the case and there's nothing else you need from us, than we'll see you in Port Toha."

"Actually there is one thing you could do for me." I replied nervously.

"Oh. And what might that be?" Muston asked curious as to what it was that I could possibly need.

"Well I could use some privacy, if it's not too much trouble that is." I answered hesitantly.

"It's no trouble at all," Muston chuckled heartily, "Just let me clear Aimee out of the back for you." He said before climbing into the back of the wagon, and a few moments and one warning from Aimee later, I was able to get acquainted with the contents of my survival bags with relative privacy.

"Huh, I guess I'm some kind of mage than." I muttered quietly as I pulled out a set of darkly colored robes that were reminiscent of Sorens in design only as the color scheme was more of a steel gray with blue accents going vertically down its sides with a brown cloth belt and matching steel gray pants to complete the outfit.

"Alright so if I'm a mage, and these really are my survival bags than that means that there should be some tomes in at least one of these bags of mine." I thought aloud after dressing myself in the mages clothes.

"Well this one feels promising." I said as I reached back inside the pack I had gotten the clothes from and pulled out a large brown paper wrapped package that heavily resembled a rectangular prism. However upon opening the package I was only given more questions and what appeared to be an instructional tome and leaflets.

"Well these must be important somehow, so I'll just have to come back to them when I have more information." I muttered as I set the tome aside and placed the leaflets inside one of the empty adventure pouches on my belt, which was actually the second one that I opened since the first one I tried was housing a vulnerary.

"Huh, I wonder if there's anything else in these pouches, or if this has anymore pockets that I need to know about?" I questioned aloud.

…

"Alright, so I don't have anymore pockets sewn into this outfit. I guess that's one mystery solved, and it wasn't a complete waste of time since I was able to get all of those pamphlets into their own pocket." I said after taking a moment to thoroughly pat myself down for any sort of concealed compartments within the garments I was wearing.

"So I guess that means that this last one must have at least one tome that I can use as a weapon." I said as I pulled out what felt like the final package from the pack in front of me.

…

"Oh, no way!"


End file.
